Conference on College Composition and Communication Logo

CCCC Position Statement on Undergraduate Research in Writing: Principles and Best Practices

Conference on College Composition and Communication
March 2017

Bibliography of Resources Supporting UR in Rhetoric and Writing Studies (October 2018, pdf)

Executive Summary

Undergraduate research is a widely recognized, high-impact educational practice that offers student researchers and their mentors unique opportunities to engage in shared, discipline-based intellectual inquiry. For undergraduate research in writing studies and rhetoric to flourish at two- and four-year institutions, whether it is embedded in curricula or located in co- and extracurricular opportunities, it must be well-defined and well-supported by relevant campus units (e.g., departments, programs, campus policies) and by the allocation of available campus resources.

Introduction

Part educational movement, part curricular innovation, undergraduate research is now widely recognized as a “high-impact educational practice”:1  a method of teaching and learning known to substantially benefit students from a variety of backgrounds across a range of instructional contexts, including curricular, cocurricular, and extracurricular activities. On one hand, undergraduate research in all subject areas involves written communication. On the other hand, undergraduate research in writing creates unique, discipline-specific opportunities. Students who become undergraduate writing researchers obtain knowledge of writing that can be learned only through direct participation in full-fledged creative or critical inquiries. As undergraduate writing researchers, students also have the unique experience of contributing actively as subject experts to one or more communities (e.g., department or program, campus, discipline). Likewise, faculty, staff, and graduate students who teach and mentor undergraduate writing researchers gain distinctive opportunities for student-centered instruction, collaboration (e.g., coresearch, coauthorship), and professional development.

This position statement reflects CCCC members’ growing commitment to undergraduate research. It also supports members’ efforts to foster undergraduate research in writing at their home institutions, whether two- or four-year colleges or universities. To that end, this statement affirms undergraduate research in writing as a distinctive activity, and it outlines principles and best practices for mentoring undergraduate writing researchers, developing curricula that support undergraduate research in writing research curriculum, and building and sustaining campus infrastructure that can sustain undergraduate writing research activities.

Recognizing Undergraduate Research in Writing

At its most robust, undergraduate research includes the following elements: the formation of one or more mentoring relationships, preliminary study and project planning, information gathering and analysis, and the feedback loop of peer review and revision associated with the dissemination of findings, whether through publication or public presentation.

In writing studies, undergraduate research reflects the breadth of available methods and methodologies developed and used by professional writing researchers, including textual, archival, and digital scholarship; quantitative and qualitative empirical research; and creative inquiry. Undergraduate research in writing also reflects the full range of students, faculty, and staff involved in college writing. Undergraduate researchers can be first-year students, two-year college students, English language learners, writing or English majors and minors, writing tutors, supplemental instructors, and/or students from any discipline who engage in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Writing in the Disciplines (WID), or Writing in the Major (WIM). Mentors of undergraduate researchers in writing are similarly diverse. They can be full-time and part-time faculty members, graduate students, staff, administrators, and/or community members affiliated with relevant campus programs. Mentoring relationships, whether formal or informal, benefit from various forms of institutional support calibrated to mentors’ roles and status.

No single model for integrating undergraduate research in writing into postsecondary education exists. Instead, undergraduate research in writing can be curricular, cocurricular, or extracurricular. It can take place during a single quarter or semester, over a summer, or across a period of years. Whatever the case, undergraduate research in writing follows established ethical standards for inquiries of different kinds, including archival work, community-based projects, studies that involve online or digital media, and studies that involve human participants.2

Principles and Best Practices for Undergraduate Research in Writing

For undergraduate research in writing to flourish, it must be actively cultivated and sustained through individual relationships; through scaffolding provided by campus initiatives and strategic plans; and through infrastructure provided by campus units (e.g., programs, departments), policies, and resources. Specifically

For students
Undergraduate research in writing starts with well-supported undergraduate researchers or students who have one or more opportunities during college to work formally or informally with one or more mentors on well-defined, well-scaffolded projects that align with both institutional learning outcomes and students’ own educational goals.

Good mentors

  • Can be faculty and instructors of any status or rank, graduate students, or staff.
  • Have relevant knowledge of not only writing practices and processes but also writing research methods and methodologies.
  • Are willing and able to communicate regularly with undergraduate researchers, offering guidance and feedback over time, at every stage of a project.
  • Connect undergraduate researchers with available experts (e.g., librarians, statisticians) and relevant disciplinary and institutional resources (e.g., data collection and analysis software, funding opportunities).
  • Help undergraduate researchers comply with ethical standards for writing inquiries, including (but not limited to) certification and project approval procedures specific to research with human participants.
  • Guide researchers through dissemination in various media and offer a conduit to disciplinary and institutional support.

Well-defined projects

  • Have exigence, addressing a research question of pressing interest and importance to the student researcher and the field.
  • Make a genuine contribution, however modest, to public knowledge of writing, whether academic (e.g., disciplinary knowledge), professional, or community-based.
  • Fit into students’ schedules over a set period of time.
  • Follow relevant ethical standards.
  • Have concrete and realistic goals for dissemination.

Well-aligned projects

  • Reflect relevant learning outcomes, whether for a single course or course of study.
  • Advance students’ individual college-level educational goals.
  • Are eligible for support from available sources (e.g., course credit, travel funding).
    Reinforce students’ post-graduate plans.

For mentors
Whether mentors work one-to-one with undergraduate researchers, in small groups, or in teams involving multiple mentors and mentees, mentoring undergraduate research in writing can enliven teaching, enrich research and scholarship, and enhance professional development in alignment with mentors’ own job responsibilities and career goals.

Pedagogically, mentors

  • Draw on and expand existing instructional expertise to focus holistically on mentees’ interests and needs.
  • Draw on and expand existing scholarly expertise to help students move through the research process from identifying a research question through to relating project findings to the larger scholarly, professional, or community conversation.
  • Promote knowledge transfer by helping undergraduate researchers recognize how they are using previously acquired knowledge and how they are building skills and abilities they will be able to apply subsequently in their academic, professional, and personal lives.
  • Help students build networks of connection on campus and within broader local and disciplinary communities through relationships forged in conjunction with their projects.

As researchers and scholars, mentors

  • Draw on existing disciplinary expertise in rhetoric and composition/writing studies and adjacent fields.
  • Expand their disciplinary knowledge to engage student researchers’ interests and needs.
  • Develop research and workflow protocols for effective and ethical collaboration with undergraduate researchers.
  • Collaborate with students on the coconstruction of knowledge and the coauthorship of scholarly publications and presentations.
  • When appropriate, draw from existing scholarship on undergraduate research and also contribute to it.

As members of campus, local, and disciplinary communities, mentors

  • Foster and contribute to the development and ongoing delivery of curricula that support undergraduate research in writing.
  • Participate actively in building and sustaining campus capacity for undergraduate research.
  • Identify opportunities for undergraduate researchers to collaborate with community and workplace partners.
  • Connect campus efforts with regional, national, and international initiatives for undergraduate research.

For institutions
To build and support a culture of undergraduate research that includes writing studies, individual colleges and universities must provide infrastructure, scaffolding, and sustaining resources.

Infrastructure consists of

  • Campus leadership informed about how writing, as a discipline that draws on humanities, social sciences, and fine arts methods and methodologies, fits into the larger campus picture of undergraduate research.
  • Inclusion of writing scholars on campus committees related to undergraduate research.
  • Attentiveness to the needs of undergraduate researchers in writing by relevant campus units (e.g., IRB, libraries, stats centers).
  • Policies (e.g., hiring, annual evaluation, tenure, and promotion) that recognize and reward involvement in undergraduate research.

Scaffolding comprises

  • Support for lower- and upper-division courses that incorporate research or elements of research and thus require special accommodations (e.g., equipment, location, credit hours).
  • Professional development opportunities for mentors.
  • Inclusion of undergraduate researchers and their mentors in relevant campus events and publications.
  • Awards that recognize and celebrate excellence in undergraduate research.
  • Mechanisms for assessing the impact of undergraduate research on campus.

Resources include

  • Funding to support undergraduate researchers through the full arc of undergraduate research, from data collection and analysis to dissemination.
  • Funding to support undergraduate research mentors’ involvement in all stages of their mentees’ work, regardless of mentors’ ranks and campus roles (e.g., adjunct, non-tenure- track, and tenure-track faculty members; staff; administrators).
  • Access for spaces and tools for completing undergraduate research, including software licenses, storage for physical and virtual data, poster printers, and so on.

Endnotes

1. See George D. Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Do, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (Washington, DC: AAC&U, 2008) Kuh’s analysis of data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) demonstrates that high-impact practices, including undergraduate research, not only improve retention and graduation rates but also promote deep learning and gains in general, personal, and practical knowledge. Kuh traces the value of high-impact practices to the ways in which they require students to invest considerable energy in purposeful intellectual activities; to be engaged with faculty and peers in substantive work and to receive feedback on that work; to connect with people from diverse backgrounds; and to transfer their developing knowledge and skills across contexts, including classrooms, campus organizations, the workplace, and the wider community.

2. See CCCC Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies.

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for Work with Technology

This statement is intended for promotion and tenure committees, and candidates for promotion and tenure. Its purpose is to provide some general principles to promotion and tenure committees and candidates to ensure that candidates’ work with technology is explained accurately and evaluated fairly. The statement consists of three parts: general statements about technology and its potential impact on the promotion and tenure review processes, specific guidelines for promotion and tenure committees; and specific guidelines for candidates for promotion and tenure.

Read the full statement, CCCC Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for Work with Technology (November 1998, Revised November 2015)

Scholarship in Rhetoric, Writing, and Composition: Guidelines for Faculty, Deans, and Chairs

The purpose of this statement is to describe the range of scholarly activities in rhetoric, writing, and composition. The audiences for this statement include faculty and administrators who have the responsibility for evaluating this scholarship as part of the recruitment, promotion, and other evaluative activities that occur in colleges and universities; scholars in the field who are explaining their work to nonspecialists; and any others who want to understand the work of scholars in this broadly interdisciplinary field.

Read the full statement, Scholarship in Rhetoric, Writing, and Composition: Guidelines for Faculty, Deans, and Chairs [March 2018 (replaces the 1987 CCCC “The Range of Scholarship in Composition: A Description for Department Chairs and Deans”)]

Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series

The CCCC Studies in Writing and Rhetoric Series (SWR), established in 1984, supports research that explores how writing, rhetoric, and literacy are currently and have been historically taught, learned, practiced, and circulated within communities, whether in colleges, workplaces, or neighborhoods, local, national, digital, or international contexts. The series also focuses on supporting a broad range of projects that accurately represent the diverse identities of teachers, learners, administrators, and researchers involved in writing, rhetoric, and literate activity, addressing the cultural, social, political, and material realities that define their work. Work published in SWR seeks to identify and resist the inequities and forces of oppression that shape the teaching of writing, rhetoric, and literacy as well as to intervene in them. The series aspires to be global both in scope and reach, and is dedicated to the use of digital technologies that ensure its publications are accessible and available to a national and international audience.

Newest SWR Books

Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice and Crisis Communication during Disaster
Author: Sweta Baniya
ISBN: 9780814101933
With grounded case studies of the 2015 Nepal earthquake and 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Baniya showcases how locals in marginalized and colonized spaces overcome disaster-created complexities via coalitional and transnational engagements.
Read an open-access version of this book at the WAC Clearinghouse.

The Hands of God at Work: Islamic Gender Justice through Translingual Praxis
Author: Amber Engelson
ISBN: 9780814101766
Drawing from ethnographic data collected in Indonesia from 2009 to 2022, Engelson explores how an English-medium Indonesian PhD program in interreligious studies and three Muslim scholar-activists activate knowledge where languages intersect, a process mediated by material circumstances within Indonesia and voices past, present, and future that both are audience to and transcend the traditional geographic and discursive borders associated with them.

Queer Techné: Bodies, Rhetorics, and Desire in the History of Computing
Author: Patricia Fancher
ISBN: 9780814101735
Drawing on archival materials from the Manchester University National Archive for the History of Computing, Fancher first analyzes the technical and scientific writing of Alan Turing and then places Turing’s work in the context of queer friends who collaborated with him and within a community of women whose labor forms the foundation of computing operations. Fancher argues for the importance of embodied experiences, gender, and sexuality as central lenses for understanding technical communication as well as technical innovation.

Living English, Moving Literacies: Women’s Stories of Learning between the US and Nepal
Author: Katie Silvester
ISBN: 9780814101704
Based on an ethnographic study in Nepal spanning a decade, Silvester speaks with and to the stories of Bhutanese women in diaspora learning English later in life during resettlement and in the context of waves of social change brought on by the end of their asylum. The book provides insight for teaching literacies across cultural landscapes.

Recollections from an Uncommon Time: 4C20 Documentarian Tales
Editors: Julie Lindquist, Bree Straayer, and Bump Halbritter
ISBN: 9780814139523
Originally intended to document the 2020 CCCC Convention experience, this book became a means for documentarians to share a common experience in the uncommon time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read an open-access version of this book at the WAC Clearinghouse.

Transfer in an Urban Writing Ecology: Reimagining Community College–University Relations in Composition Studies
Authors: Christie Toth with Joanne Castillo, Nic Contreras, Kelly Corbray, Nathan Lacy, Westin Porter, Sandra Salazar-Hernandez, and Colleagues
ISBN: 9780814155189
Combining student writing, personal reflection, and academic analysis, this book urges, documents, and helps to enact more transfer-conducive writing ecologies.

Teachers Talking Writing: Perspectives on Places, Pedagogies, and Programs
Author: Shane A. Wood
ISBN: 9780814152768
Shane A. Wood offers a collection of conversations about the theory and teaching of writing in postsecondary contexts.
Read an open-access version of this book at the WAC Clearinghouse.

IP and Your Professional Organizations

Words and images can be worth a lot of money, and that fact sometimes causes a collision between educators and copyright holders. One notable example of such a collision, the case of Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et al, was reported upon in the previous IP Report. The outcome of that case offers some encouragement to educators who use e-reserves to distribute materials to their students. But that is only one example among many. Educators have a stake in numerous other IP-related developments, such as Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) rule making, the proliferation of plagiarism detection services, and the growth of open access journals and repositories and attempts to restrict such growth.

At their conferences, the NCTE and the CCCC provide opportunities for panels and presentations on IP issues as they affect the educational community. In addition to these opportunities for the discussion of IP issues, the NCTE and the CCCC sponsor or facilitate the following:

Intellectual Property Caucus

The IP Caucus was formed in 1994. While it is not a formal organization within the NCTE or CCCC, it has a strong working relationship with both. Each spring, at the CCCC’s annual convention, the IP Caucus holds a meeting, open to all, at which participants break into roundtables to discuss IP-related developments that have affected or are likely to affect the educational community. For example, during the last caucus, in March of 2012, educators at one roundtable discussed the need to re-think academic integrity statements in light of the fact that research from the Citation Project and LILAC Group, among others, provides evidence that what we currently are doing—threatening students and focusing on punishment—is not working. In view of that fact, roundtable participants considered ways to focus on learning rather than penalties.

In 2013, the IP Caucus will again invite educators who are concerned with issues of copyright, fair use, openness, remix, access, and the ownership and use of intellectual property to join in thought-provoking discussions on these topics.

Intellectual Property Committee

The IP Committee was established in 1996, largely at the initiative of the Intellectual Property Caucus, and maintains a close relationship with that group as it promotes discussion among CCCC and NCTE members about IP issues. It also develops policy statements and pedagogical materials on IP-related issues and fosters research on IP topics. Specifically, the Intellectual Property Committee is charged with the following:

  • keep the CCCC and NCTE memberships informed about intellectual property developments, through reports in the CCCC newsletter and in other NCTE and CCCC forums,
  • maintain a close working relationship with the Caucus on Intellectual Property and Composition Studies,
  • develop policy statements to guide writing teachers’ and researchers’ uses of coursepacks, electronic materials, etc., and
  • address issues of concern to the organizations, such as interpretations of fair use (e.g., in relation to photocopying, use of unpublished material, use of copyrighted materials in multimedia, use of graphic images, etc.); copyright debates and evolving policies regarding electronic rights in publishing and use of published materials; safeguarding the public domain; attitudes and practices regarding authorship of texts, including students’ texts (e.g., collaboration; acknowledgment of sources; plagiarism); and other topics.

IP Annual

Since 2006, one way that the Intellectual Property Committee has both “ke[pt] the CCCC and NCTE memberships informed about intellectual property developments” and “maintain[ed] a close working relationship with the Caucus on Intellectual Property and Composition Studies” is through the joint sponsorship of the IP Annual, a yearly report on major IP developments that is hosted by NCTE/CCCC. The first annual, covering events in 2005, consisted of three articles, one on a lawsuit against the Google book scanning project (still being litigated eight years later), and two on rulings in other significant cases, BMG Music v. Gonzalez and MGM v. Grokster. The latest annual, Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2011, consists of six articles, including an essay on open access developments, a report on a significant court ruling affecting the scope of the public domain, and an article on a campaign against legislation that might have restricted public access to publicly funded research. The entire IP Annual series is accessible at the web site of the Committee on Intellectual Property.

IP Reports

In 2009, another collaboration between the IP Committee and the IP Caucus got under way with the publication of the first monthly IP Report in the NCTE InBox. As of today, thirty-six of these reports have been published. These brief articles introduce educators to resources relevant to IP issues and alert them to legislation and court cases that may affect them as writers, researchers, and instructors. Recent reports have included a wide range of articles, from IP considerations that affect textbook affordability to the ins and outs of a lawsuit involving the scanning of copyrighted publications (HathiTrust Case).

Opportunities for Involvement

The IP Committee is a formally constituted group that meets annually at the CCCC convention. During the rest of the year, its members communicate online via their NCTE Connected Community. The IP Caucus, on the other hand, is not a formal part of the NCTE/CCCC, but it works closely with the IP Committee. In fact, the membership is overlapping, as IP Caucus members tend to volunteer to serve on the IP Committee. In addition, the senior chair of the Caucus serves on the Committee. In a sense, then, if you attend the Caucus, you have a voice on the Committee. So come and be heard at next year’s CCCC Convention! Learn about the IP issues that affect you and your students, ask questions, and express opinions. In the meantime, the IP Caucus and the IP Committee, with the support of the NCTE/CCCC, will continue to publish both the IP Annual and the monthly IP Reports as they endeavor to keep educators up to date on rapidly evolving events in the field of IP.

Thank you to Martine Courant Rife, Mike Edwards, Jeff Galin, and Jim Purdy, whose ideas (and occasionally language) were appropriated for this report.

This column is sponsored by the Intellectual Property Committee of the CCCC and the CCCC-Intellectual Property Caucus. The IP Caucus maintains a mailing list. If you would like to receive notices of programs sponsored by the Caucus or of opportunities to submit articles either to this column or to the annual report on intellectual property issues, please contact kgainer@radford.edu.

 

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

2015 CCCC Convention Program

Entire Convention Program

2015 CCCC Convention Program Cover(Note: this is a large PDF file and may take several minutes to open)

Program by section

 

   

CCCC Supports

Research Grants

Emergent Researcher Award
These awards are intended to invest in CCCC members by rewarding and supporting: early career researchers; writing faculty/instructors who have not had the opportunity to engage in funded research; and/or writing faculty/instructors who do not have support for research within their institutions. In addition to funding research up to $10,000 per project, the Emergent Researcher Awards also provide research support.
Research

Research Initiative
The CCCC Research Initiative invites proposals for research projects that can contribute to or affect discussions about literacy and writing instruction in and out of formal education. This program funds proposals up to $10,000 each.

CCCC/TYCA Editorial Fellowship
Publications
Travel Scholarships and Grants
CCCC Childcare Grants
CCCC Annual Convention
CCCC Summer Conferences

Position Statement on CCCC Standards for Ethical Conduct Regarding Sexual Violence, Sexual Harassment, and Workplace Bullying

Conference on College Composition and Communication
November 2016; Revised March 2020

Executive Summary

The goal of this position statement is to outline expectations of ethical conduct by CCCC members as they relate to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying, building upon NCTE’s Mutual Respect and Anti-Harassment Policy applied to all NCTE events. This position statement is meant to facilitate a greater understanding of ethical conduct as it pertains to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying as they occur in a range of contexts among postsecondary teachers and researchers in the profession as well as students and other stakeholders served by CCCC members. CCCC condemns sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying in any form and seeks to foster a sense of responsibility among members as they combat these forms of ethical misconduct. This statement offers a glossary for understanding such misconduct, as well as resources on reporting sexual misconduct and workplace bullying, and resources on professional ethics.

Introduction

Given histories of sexual misconduct and workplace bullying within academia broadly and our profession specifically, CCCC forwards this statement on sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying to help protect vulnerable or subordinate populations from harm incurred, knowingly or unknowingly, by teachers, researchers, and administrators. This document aligns with long-held positions of numerous prominent scholarly organizations (see Resources: Professional Ethics below) and builds upon the foundation laid by NCTE’s Mutual Respect and Anti-Harassment Policy to address sexual harassment, sexual intimidation, and unwelcome sexual attention, with the addition of workplace bullying, as these behaviors apply specifically to postsecondary teachers, researchers, and administrators in the profession.

CCCC is committed to protecting the rights, safety, dignity, and well-being of those involved in our research, our teaching, and in the range of professional training environments that occur within the field of writing studies/rhetoric and composition. CCCC further has a commitment to creating conditions supportive of professional competence, honesty and fairness, professional and scholarly responsibility, and contributing to the public good. Thus, CCCC condemns sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying in any form.

To behave ethically within national organizations necessitates an awareness of power differentials among students, teachers, administrators, researchers, research assistants and associates, research participants, peers, mentors, and mentees. Teachers and researchers are responsible for implementing ethical research and professional practices in association with institutional ethics review bodies such as departments, faculties, universities, colleges, community organizations, and funding agencies, as well as regional and national federations of faculty members.

This statement is intended to inform members’ ethical judgments as they consider asymmetric and sometimes shifting power relations—in relation to position titles, identity politics, institutional norms, etc.—among themselves and others they work with in professional roles. The role of CCCC as a professional organization is to serve as a forum for working through problems of research ethics, teaching practices, writing assessment, working with students, and for educating the public about literacy. Its powers of enforcement are limited to moral persuasion, public discussion, and the recommendation of resources for conflict resolution. We recognize that this statement’s strength and requisite influence depend on its circulation, discussion, reflection, and use by CCCC members.

Sexual Misconduct and Harassment

CCCC does not condone sexual harassment, nor does it condone the disregard of complaints of sexual harassment from students, staff, or colleagues. While relationships between faculty and student, mentor and mentee are in some ways unequal, in some circumstances they might raise actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Such conflicts may arise when personal and professional relationships are mixed, and care should be exercised under those circumstances to protect the interests of less powerful parties. Use of asymmetric power by members of the profession resulting in sexual harassment of a student, a colleague, or a staff member is seen as unacceptable and unethical behavior by CCCC (a conference of NCTE).

Intent and Impact
Intentionality is of central importance when considering instances of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and discrimination, but the lack of intentionality should not be used or accepted as a blanket excuse for harassment or discrimination. The question of the impact of one’s behavior is more important than the intent behind it. Conduct that impacts a member negatively as unwelcome, coercive, or nonconsensual is determined by the recipient of the behavior rather than the initiator. Sexual, racial, homophobic, transphobic, and other such harassment are abuses of power that negate both the principle of equal opportunity and the possibilities of a good working and meeting environment.

Asymmetrical Power Relations and Exploitation
Ethical behavior by CCCC is recognized as that which recognizes asymmetries in power that are distinguishable between members and does not exploit asymmetric power for personal gain. Asymmetric relationships might include relationships between teachers and undergraduate, graduate, and research students, as well as relationships that place an individual in a position to evaluate their colleagues or allocate resources to them. We define exploitation as engaging in conduct in order to obtain personal, sexual, economic, or professional advantages. CCCC members should be aware that such inequalities of power pertain not only in cases of overt sexual harassment, but also in relationships that involve consent and an attendant hierarchy. Members should take care to ensure that personal or sexual relationships entered into at work on a consensual and reciprocal basis do not exploit those inequalities of power and do not disadvantage or unfairly advantage the less powerful.

Decisions and circumstances involving professional ethical obligations often extend past an individual moment of contact: peer and senior members of the field may be positioned in varied ways in the future beyond a direct supervisory/advisory role. In thinking through situations of professional ethics, it is thus important to remember that the colleagues one encounters today may in the future be department chairs, colleagues with oversight responsibilities, committee members who hire faculty or award grants, reviewers for manuscripts, editors of professional journals, leaders in professional organizations, and writers of support letters for employment, tenure, and promotion cases.

Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying is bullying that occurs in any setting in which work-related activities happen and consists of a pattern of behavior or behaviors that persist over a period of time. These behaviors negatively impact the target of the bullying, interfering with the target’s ability to do their job. While many behaviors can make up bullying—ranging from rumors and criticism to verbal abuse—research on bullying in the WPA workplace has shown that bullying behaviors often work to exclude and isolate, to undermine individuals and writing programs, to exert control over individuals and writing programs, and to intimidate through verbal or physical actions or attacks (see Defining, Locating, and Addressing Bullying in the WPA Workplace). For a list of 22 workplace bullying behaviors as identified by the NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised), see the link below under Resources for Workplace Bullying. For a more thorough exploration of bullying specific to writing programs, see the CWPA Statement on Bullying in the Workplace (also below).

CCCC does not condone bullying in the workplace, nor does it condone the disregard of complaints of workplace bullying from students, staff, or colleagues. While relationships between administrators and faculty, faculty and faculty, faculty and student, as well as mentor and mentee are in some ways unequal, power relations are often complicated and shifting. Care should be exercised to protect the interests of less-powerful parties. Use of asymmetric power by members of the profession resulting in workplace bullying is seen as unacceptable and unethical behavior by CCCC.

Intent and Impact
As with sexual harassment and misconduct, workplace bullying may be intentional or unintentional, and it is the impact of the behavior that is at issue, not the intent. In fact, bullies often do not recognize their behavior as bullying. Many scholars of workplace bullying assert that it is the target who decides when bullying has occurred, while others suggest that behaviors can be deemed bullying when a reasonable person identifies abusive behaviors as such. Because workplace bullying can negatively impact the target’s ability to do their work, the impact is more important than the intent.

Structural Risk Factors and Power Differentials
Major risk factors that contribute to the widespread presence of workplace bullying in higher education include the size of higher education institutions, the tenure structure, a ubiquitous lack of resources, and perceptions of unfair practices. Most important to this position statement is the risk that comes along with the hierarchical environment in most postsecondary institutions. For example, the strict reporting lines of tenure structures and departments can make it difficult to report bullying, particularly when one’s supervisor is the bully or one’s supervisor chooses not to address a colleague’s bullying behavior. However, having a higher status in the tenure hierarchy does not necessarily protect one from being the target of bullying, particularly as power relations can change multiple times over the course of one’s career and are affected by identity politics, disciplinary affiliation, mobbing, and other factors. Structural risk factors are typically outside the control of individuals, and targets are not to be blamed for being bullied. Therefore, we emphasize the professional ethical obligation for CCCC members to be aware of their own conduct and to respond as allies when they witness bullying as referenced in the following section.

Professional Ethical Obligations

Implicit in the idea of professionalism is for those in positions of authority to recognize that their relationships with others always involve elements of power, particularly in circumstances where they might be in a position to evaluate and endorse subordinates’ work or to respond to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and workplace bullying they witness or to evaluate their own behaviors for elements of these destructive actions. It is incumbent upon members of the profession not to abuse the power with which they are entrusted.

CCCC recognizes that student members of the profession (whether undergraduate or graduate) as well as contingent and untenured faculty and faculty of color or from underrepresented groups may be particularly vulnerable in the power structure of the academy. For this reason, CCCC supports the position that all members of CCCC feel secure while at CCCC-sponsored events, and that members know that CCCC is concerned with their safety, dignity, and well-being as it relates to their professional lives.

Sexual Misconduct and Harassment
CCCC expects members to recognize and avoid exploitive behavior that manifests as coercive sexual contact or harassment and to be familiar with affirmative consent. Exploitive and nonconsensual sexual relationships undermine the atmosphere of trust among students, staff, and faculty on which the educational process depends and constitute unprofessional and unethical behavior. CCCC encourages in all members a sense of care and responsibility in making decisions in situations that invoke sexual ethics and to know, use, and promote training they’ve received in Title IX and Equity offices in their home institutions. CCCC expects members to be familiar with the NCTE Mutual Respect and Anti-Harassment Policy, which prohibits sexual harassment, sexual intimidation, and unwelcome sexual contact in all venues and events. CCCC supports in all members those reporting obligations set by Title IX, specifically, the expectation that members report witnessed instances of sexual violence and sexual harassment in off-campus education activities. CCCC also acknowledges, however, recommendations offered by the AAUP for colleges and universities to avoid making faculty mandatory reporters. CCCC encourages members to be aware of the ways individual administrations and institutions elect to implement Title IX policy. (See “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX” linked below.) 

Workplace Bullying
CCCC expects members to recognize and avoid exploitive behavior that manifests as workplace bullying. CCCC encourages in all members a sense of responsibility in making decisions in situations that invoke professional workplace ethics and to identify and address workplace bullying they’ve witnessed or been told about. For suggested responses to workplace bullying, see the link below to the CWPA Position Statement on Bullying in the Workplace.

Appendix: Additional Resources

Definitions/Terms

Below is a glossary of terms used to talk about sexual violence, sexual harassment, and hostile environments. The glossary is informed by terms and definitions in Unveiling the Silence: No!: The Rape Documentary Study Guide (2007), edited by Salamishah Tillet, Rachel Afi Quinn, and Aishah Shahidah Simmons.

  • Accountability: a willingness for one to have their behavior critiqued by others. If applicable, accountability can also mean taking responsibility for behaviors, actions, and errors that are unjust and accepting and acting on the need for a change to occur in recognition of this new understanding of a matter learned from the response of others.
  • Bullying: As defined by the Workplace Bullying Institute, “workplace bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is:
  • Consent: explicit words or actions that express a choice to participate in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity. It is imperative to note that affirmative or positive consent is not guaranteed when drugs, alcohol, medication, or any substance or circumstance that could impair someone has been used.
  • Harassment: whether verbal, psychological, or physical, behavior that may discriminate or disempower others based on another person’s race/ethnicity, gender identification, religious status, nationality or national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability status, political beliefs or affiliation, chosen research or teaching area, or employment status. Harassment creates a hostile environment that compromises the professional freedoms, development, and performance of its victims and undermines the atmosphere of trust essential to the academic enterprise. Members of the CCCC are expected to create professional settings that foster respect for the rights of others.
  • NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised): a 22-item survey instrument used to measure exposure to workplace bullying.
  • Perpetrator: one who commits or has committed a crime against another. Assailant and Offender are also often used in this statement and elsewhere to refer to a perpetrator.
  • Rape: a crime of forced, manipulated, or coerced sexual intercourse.
  • Rape Culture: an environment in which attitudes, ideologies, and gender socialization justify (or do not challenge) nonconsensual sexual activity.
  • Sexual Harassment: behavior in the context of a professional and educational environment in which one person is sexualized and objectified. Examples of such harassment include sexual comments or remarks upon another individual’s body or sexuality; a quid pro quo in which sexual advances or acquiescence is accompanied by the threat of retaliation or a reward. Such behavior is illegal in the United States under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments.
  • Sexual Violence: unwanted or coercive sexual behavior, which can range from sexual bullying to rape. The terms rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse can be used interchangeably and refer to coercive, forced sexual contact.
  • Victim Blaming: holding the victim of a harm or assault, including sexually based crimes, responsible for having been assaulted.

Resources: Reporting Sexual Assault

Reporting Sexual Assault to Law Enforcement

How to File a Title IX Complaint

The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX

Bystanders: Help Prevent Sexual Assault

How to Respond to a Survivor

What Consent Looks Like

No-Contact Orders

Intersections of Race and Sexual Assault

Resources: Professional Ethics

MLA Statement of Professional Ethics

AAUP Statement of Professional Ethics

Canadian Sociological Association Statement of Professional Ethics

Canadian Association of University Teachers Policy Statement on Freedom from Harassment

Canadian Association of University Teachers Policy Statement on Professional on Professional Rights and Responsibilities

American Association of Geographers Statement on Professional Ethics

American Association of Physical Anthropologists Code of Ethics

National Communication Association Code of Professional Ethics

American Sociological Association Code of Ethics

Organization of American Historians Code of Ethics

American Musicological Association Guidelines for Ethical Conduct

American Political Science Association Guide to Professional Ethics

Resources: Teaching and Learning

Unveiling the Silence: No!: The Rape Documentary Study Guide

Resources: Workplace Bullying

Defining, Locating, and Addressing Bullying in the WPA Workplace

CWPA Position Statement on Bullying in the Workplace

NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised)

Workplace Bullying in Higher Education

Workplace Bullying Institute

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

CCC Podcasts–D. Alexis Hart and Roger Thompson

D. Alexis Hart and Roger Thompson
A conversation with D. Alexis Hart and Roger Thompson, coauthors of “Veterans in the Writing Classroom: Three Programmatic Approaches to Facilitate the Transition from the Military to Higher Education” (14:50).

D. Alexis Hart is associate professor of English and director of writing at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. A US Navy veteran, she has published and edited scholarly work on veterans’ issues and was the co-recipient, with Roger Thompson, of a 2010 Conference on College Composition and Communication Research Initiative Grant to study veterans returning to college writing classrooms. She is co-chair of the CCCC Task Force on Veterans and an NCTE Policy Analyst for Higher Education in Pennsylvania.

 

 

Roger Thompson is associate professor in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University and serves as senior fellow at Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families. He is coauthor of Beyond Duty: Life on the Frontline of Iraq and is author of two forthcoming books: Emerson and the History of Rhetoric and The Last Bears of Abruzzo.

 

 

 

Renew Your Membership

Join CCCC today!
Learn more about the SWR book series.
Connect with CCCC
CCCC on Facebook
CCCC on LinkedIn
CCCC on Twitter
CCCC on Tumblr
OWI Principles Statement
Join the OWI discussion

Copyright

Copyright © 1998 - 2025 National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved in all media.

1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096 Phone: 217-328-3870 or 877-369-6283

Looking for information? Browse our FAQs, tour our sitemap and store sitemap, or contact NCTE

Read our Privacy Policy Statement and Links Policy. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Use